Luisa Cohrs

For this year open studio tour I will be presenting a group of 11 paintings. The works are based on the small paper boats my mother has always made with the left over paper from her chewing gum, and the connection that this small boat have to beautification project of our LA river; thus forging an interesting way to fold this two concepts together.

Luisa Cohrs was born in Bogota, Colombia on April 19, 1968. Her father was a German immigrant that established an import/export business in Colombia in 1934. Her mother was the oldest daughter of a family from the coffee region which survived the Civil war of 1948. This colorful background has fed the iconography used by Luisa in similar ways as Gabriel Garcia Marquez has used it to enrich his magic realism.

Her move to the USA at the age of 16 gave her a brilliant opportunity to follow her dreams and complete her B.A. from Cal Poly, Pomona, then her MFA from Cal State Long Beach finishing her thesis at the University of Wolverhampton, England.

From early on she has traveled much throughout USA, Europe and Colombia. Her travel and constant moving gives her the energy and motivation to inject her work with new ideas. She continues to travel and to be a thief of imagery from the world.